Who ordered the Standard Bowl Upgrade?

You’ve ordered a delicious bowl of vegetable soup from your local diner for a very affordable $2. It arrives. You indulge. That warm, satisfied soup feeling settles over you, and then your waitress drops the bill off.

Much to your surprise, your $2 soup has increased to $8 due to several “hidden” charges, including a “Spoon Usage Fee” and a “Standard Bowl Upgrade.” Yes, you’ve been charged an additional “Flat Bread Fee” for those oyster crackers you had to have, and there’s also a charge for “Excess Waste Removal” since you weren’t able to finish up your meal.

When you make your way to the cashier to protest these unfair fees, she merely points to microscopic terms printed on the last page of the menu. You sullenly dole out the cash, angry with the establishment for making its terms unclear and with yourself for not reading the menu more thoroughly.

Are your payment processor fees clear and fair?

It’s a silly scenario, but for many entrepreneurs, it may feel familiar. When choosing a payment processor, merchants are confronted with a wide array of options touting different rates and terms. Some may appear reasonable on the surface, but a careful review of the contract reveals several damaging fees that were never mentioned in the initial quote.

Most of these fees are perfectly fair and reasonable. Payment processors have to make money to stay in business, after all. The problem comes when processors don’t make additional fees clear in the initial consultation.

For most entrepreneurs, time and money are two items in short supply. That makes sorting through pages of unfamiliar terms in a payment processor contract a daunting endeavor. When you receive what seems like a fair rate, you eagerly sign a contract to nail it down, making the assumption that it includes all possible qualifiers. Only when you receive the first bill do you discover tricky charges buried in a sea of legalese on the contract.

Untangling souped up payment processing rates

This is one of the problems Precision Payment Systems solves for small and mid-sized businesses most vulnerable to unclear terms. We help you choose the payment processor with the best rates for your particular business model.

As a brokerage, we have access to payment processing options that merchants do not, and as experts in the field, we have a keen eye for hidden fees and questionable charges. We sift through all of the legalese for you to ensure that the rates you expect are the actual rates that you’ll see on your bill each month.

Because we know what to look for, we easily identify red flags that could result in rate fluctuations and interchange downgrades. We take into consideration how your customers make payments to find the processing options that will satisfy their needs and your stakeholders. We ensure that you’re doing business with PCI-compliant processors to prevent burdensome non-compliance fees.

In short, we make sure that the payment processor you partner with will be a partner that you can count on to be consistent and reliable throughout the life of your contract.